Live performances of bands are like going to the zoo for me. I mean in a positive way.
When I go to see bands I like to see how they do it. The sound, the style, the way they interact, things like that. In their natural habitat. You see? Like going to the zoo.
I’m not a show dancer, never really have been. Some people give me a hard time about that. And I don’t blame them. The bands even need people to do that. It’s just not why I’m there.
I’d like to explain why. For me it’s that I have a chance to see how a band does what they do up close and learn from it.
I got 2 opportunities to do that this weekend.
image - CC-BY-NC-ND Some rights reserved by sgt fun
One was an outside show in downtown Madison where the New Pornographers played. Overall the performance was a good one. But the vocals were mixed more than the guitar, which seemed non-existent. That’s always too bad when the sound mix is a problem, there’s not really much you can do about that. But they were a solid live band.
image - CC-BY Some rights reserved by TimothyJ
The second was next night at the High Noon saloon, where The English Beat played. I was lucky on this one, my keyboardist Eric was working front of house monitors. I got a great view for that one. Nice to see a band that you’ve known and heard for years play the iconic songs. Not a cover band, which is the way you would normally get to hear it live.
For that show Eric pointed out an interesting thing to me. Singer Dave Wakeling, was playing his guitar right handed but the strings were strung upside-down.
Meaning– instead of the low note string being at the top of the six and higher ones going down the line. The high string was first and the low was the last one. At the bottom.
I had never seen that before?! Is it so the highs get most of the accent when played? Or is he left handed playing right handed? But that would be even harder to do I think.
Trying to see what bands do and how they do it live seems to bring up interesting questions in my head.